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Comment by jiggliemon | Hacker News Reader

This is the biggest asshole response to real problems that I see Californians say all the time.

Maybe I just know too many assholes – but there has to be a better answer to “people are fleeing California for legitimate reasons” than “good riddance.”

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Have you considered that it is not "good riddance", but an observation that as the population declines the housing problem is decreasing until it will go away?

Population growth is a real problem, we are living in an finite system called planet Earth. With 1/4 of the world population everyone would live better - less pollution, 4 times more resources per capita, etc. Imagine California with 10-15 million inhabitants, no homeless people, enough water for everybody.

> Population growth is a real problem, we are living in an finite system called planet Earth. With 1/4 of the world population everyone would live better

First half is true, second half ignorant. Your life is better because somewhere out there are half a dozen poor people mining resources and building goods for you, for a tiny fraction of your income.

That's only assuming that being able to buy cheap stuff actually makes people happier. I don't think it does.

Nobody is talking about happiness and nobody could agree with everybody on what that means. The word here was "better" and cheap labor in poor countries objectively makes our lives better, because we can afford more goods (both needed and unneeded) with our incomes and expectations regarding working conditions.

Whether we are talking about happiness or better-ness you are still projecting a value system and claiming it to be objective.

I personally don’t derive any sense of betterness from being able to afford more goods. I only see the ocean of plastic.

I am living in that country where poor people mine resources for others to live good, so I know what I am writing about. My family is from a mountain area where timber and cow farms were the only resources they lived on, now we can barely get enough wood for maintain the buildings because the demand is so big that we either limit the consumption or risk massive deforestation. Less people means less demand and more resources per capita.

The problem isn’t total population, its population density. Too much is bad and too little is bad. You could change the total all you want but if everyone decides to live in the same place then you’re stuck with the same problems.

I would say the reverse: low population rural areas are great, and high density cities are great, but suburban mid-density is the absolute worst of all worlds. It creates massive traffic, consumes unbelievable amounts of land with roads and environmentally destructive lawns, is super high-carbon per person with no way to add effective transit or amenities. It leaves people trapped in homes that they can't leave for any daily errand or commute without hopping in a car, which is terrible for people's health, and as we age it leaves us even more stranded because cars are not good for accessibility. Kids can't play outside on their own because of constant fear of cars, and as they grow the need constant taxiing around town to do any sort of activity or get to and from school. Schools themselves become enormous parking lots twice a day as kids are dropped off and picked up in what has to be the most ridiculous form of transit every conceived: massive SUVs weighing tons, spewing brake dust and exhaust into the lungs of the tiny princes and princesses being chauffeured one by one to their schools.

There is no redeeming the car-dependent suburban style of city planning. Commuter rail suburbs are better, rural life is better small towns are better, urban life is better. But our cars are killing us and we need to look beyond them for a sustainable and healthy future. We will not and do not need to eliminate these places, but we do need to allow transformation.

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